Yahoo Edges Out Google In User Satisfaction Poll

Is Yahoo (NASDAQ:YHOO) gaining ground on Google?

For the first time ever, Yahoo YHOO narrowly beat Google GOOG in the University of Michigan's annual American Customer Satisfaction Index report, which ranks business Web sites such as portals, search engines and news outlets.

According to the survey, released Aug. 14, Yahoo replaced Google as the top Web portal with a customer satisfaction score of 79, up nearly 4% over last year. Google's score slipped by 3.7% to 78. It's the second straight decline for the Web's top search site.

"With a 78 and 79 score, you don't declare a clear winner," said Larry Freed, chief executive of ForeSee Results, which sponsored the survey. "Yahoo has seen a great resurgence, and for Google the message here is that the competition is getting stronger."

The online survey polled 250 users in the second quarter of the year, then graded the results on a 100-point 19cale. Participants rated all of Yahoo's and Google's services -- such as maps, e-mail, information and entertainment features -- not just Web search.

Freed says Yahoo's jump is likely due to its home page redesign last year. The makeover created a one-stop shop that made it easier for consumers to find services such as weather, finance and videos.

"They are making solid incremental improvements," he said.

Unlike Yahoo, Google has resisted becoming a portal. Though it offers portal-like services through its personalized iGoogle page, Google's main home page consists of only a few links to services such as Google News and its Gmail e-mail service.

This spartan approach has worked well for Google. But that could be changing, Freed says.

"One of the reasons why Google's score went down is the consumer perception that nothing has really changed with Google over the years," he said. "The reality is that consumers expect change, they expect improvement especially when they see other sites like Yahoo making improvements."

That might be more perception than reality. Google continues to tweak its search service and has made several improvements to its stable of services. It recently added street-level views to its mapping service, for instance, along with 3-D outlines of buildings in cities.

Google's latest move is universal search. Launched in July, universal search allows consumers to search through text, photos, videos and other sources -- all at once.

Google wouldn't comment publicly on the survey results. But a spokeswoman said the company is always working to improve the service.

"The statement that nothing is changed on Google is not correct," said Greg Sterling, analyst for Sterling Market Intelligence, a research firm. "It's just that they have done a lot of subtle things."

Analysts say that subtlety could be part of its problem.

As a portal, Yahoo places links to all of its services on its home page, many of them prominently.

Google takes the opposite approach. It launches new services with little fanfare, then waits for user feedback to trickle in.

Google doesn't promote new services such as Google Finance or Google Base. Consumers have to hunt for them, says Freed.

"When you go to Google's home page you don't know about these other things," he said. "All you know is Google.com, the company's search service."

According to Web traffic research firm Hitwise, some 70% of visitors to Google went to use the company's search service in July. About 11% went for Google's YouTube video Web site. Nearly 6% visited Gmail. Google Video and Google Maps both received less than 2% of Google's total traffic. Google News got less than 1%.

Despite lower results in the satisfaction survey, Google continues to dominate search.

It accounted for 52.7% of all U.S. searches in June with 3.9 million searches, says market researcher Nielsen/NetRatings. That was up more than 46% over last year.

Yahoo ranked second with 1.49 million searches, up 46.3% over last year, and 20.2% of overall search traffic.

Another search service, Ask.com fared well in the University of Michigan survey. Consumers gave it a 75 score, up 5.6% from last year. The IAC/InterActiveCorp (NASDAQ:IACI) (OTCBB:IACPP) IACI subsidiary has only a 2.1% share of the search market, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

"It does suggest some vulnerability on Google's part and some opportunity on the part of its competitors," said analyst Sterling.

Source:www.cnn.com